Family Ties
by bubblegirl89236
Summary: Damon-centric story. Stefan finds out that he doesn't know his brother that much at all, and that what Damon does he does not do for himself but for his family. Through all that heartbreak it is a wonder Damon is still Damon; an overall deeper look into the complex being that is Damon Salvatore. Image courtesy of 'ddpavumba' from FreeDigitalPhotos .net
1. Chapter 1

**(First draft)**

**I haven't posted a story in ages, probably due to the fact I have been putting together a book instead. I suddenly realised that it was time I had a break from that story before writer's block hit me and decided to finish this one and post it up ASAP. But as always it shall be chapter by chapter.**

**This is my first Vampire Diaries fanfic, please enjoy!**

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**Prologue:**

"I'm sick of you pretending that you don't care." Stefan said hating the fact that Damon got so much lee-way with acting the way that he did, he knew that he was part to blame and that made him even more determined to force him to change back to the way he had been before they had ever met Katherine.

"And I don't care for how you think you know what goes on inside my head." Damon said pouring the remainder of his drink down his throat, returning the glass to the table and promptly starting to leave.

"Where are you going now?" Stefan said not liking the way that Damon kept avoiding everything personal by walking away from him.

"For once, just leave it. Ok?" Damon threatened, not in his usual manner but in a way that told Stefan that he was sick of fighting with him, especially about himself. Truth be told Damon had no idea where he was going; all he knew was that he had to get away from Stefan and all his stupid questions. Damon knew exactly why he was the way that he was; it just wasn't any of Stefan's business.

Damon wasn't even tipsy, the alcohol just took the edge off a little. If he knew nothing would go wrong he would have turned off his emotions in a heartbeat; but that was his life. He had to live with his guilt, his pain and had to keep it together. If he didn't then who would be left to keep Stefan together because when all was said and done, Elena was human and would grow old and die and wouldn't be there any more. If the Ripper inside of Stefan got out he would tear the people of this town apart; literally. So Damon had to be the bad guy, or else a worse guy would take his place, but even the bad guy's need a day off once in a while.

When Damon started paying attention to where he was, he found that he was sitting inside his car driving along the dimly lit road. He started seeing familiar landmarks and then he knew exactly where he was driving, he knew he shouldn't, but he allowed himself to indulge as there were worse things he could be doing right now and the fact that he chose to go see _her _instead meant that he still had hope and he wasn't quite ready to let go of it just yet.

He parked outside her house, turned the engine of the car off and just sat watching. This was not the first time he had done this and he knew that it would not be the last, but it gave him time to think and paradoxically, time to forget his problems.

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**Please review :) and compare to my earlier work, I feel the way I am writing now gives it more substance.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Here's the second instalment to get this story going. Let's see what Damon's like when no one's around to watch or judge him, I feel it makes his life all the more tragic, which only makes me love him all that much more, which I honestly didn't think was possible.**

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This was not the first time that Damon had come here and he found that whilst he had never actually met this woman, he had a connection to her that he didn't want to let go of. Having watched her for quite some time now, it was obvious that she was soon to be a mother, she enjoyed to cook and her husband always came home at 6pm sharp.

He noticed that she was hovering around the phone and he looked at the time; 6:45pm, he frowned. The phone only managed to ring once before she snatches up the handset and anxiously pressed it to her ear. From this distance Damon couldn't hear the other side of the conversation but it clearly wasn't good news. She broke down and cried herself to sleep on the sofa, leaving the television on in the background.

Damon felt a pang of empathy for her, knowing that she would have to take care of the child all alone, and that she would never truly recover. Alas Damon swore never to interfere and he drove home; as hard as it was. When he returned home, he was surprised that Stefan wasn't waiting for him, to barrage him with a multitude of questions that Damon had not the patience to endure. _"Maybe he's finally learnt to let things go"_ Damon thought briefly before shaking the thought away, Stefan doesn't change and neither did he apparently.

He retired to his room and attempted to sleep as there was nothing else to do; no impending threat, no one sitting at death's door. At these rare moments in time he usually found it relatively easy to sleep, but he just couldn't get her out of his mind. He did however finally understand the obsession human's had with soap operas, he would never degrade himself to actually watch them, but he finally understood them.

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Damon Salvatore was a man who very much kept his feelings and his thoughts to himself and only a rare few could get to know the real him. Even before he was turned he had suffered more loss than most people do in their entire lifetime, when he became a vampire he had witnessed more than enough tragic deaths of those he loved and cared for than he knew how to handle. If someone would break because of all the pain they carried on their shoulders, it would obliterate them as a vampire; Damon's strength had always been much more than just physical.

The object of Damon's attention lay on a woman named Christina Stevenson. It was a Wednesday and she was gardening, just like any other week. Her stomach was really showing these days. Seven months pregnant, only one month after the accident and she was still working on auto-pilot, trying to adjust to life on her own without accepting the fact that he was gone.

Christina was pruning the red rose tree; one of the first plants she brought to her garden once she and her husband, David had moved to Mystic Falls. Something inside her snapped, she dropped the shears to the floor and started tearing the flowers apart with her bare hands, thorns scratching and cutting her hands. She felt the blood start to flow but she didn't care, nothing mattered to her now...he was gone. He was gone and he was never coming back, she couldn't deny it any more, it wouldn't bring him back so there was just no point any more. She stopped destroying the roses and looked down to her distended belly and thought how this was the last piece of her David that she had, but she wasn't prepared to do this on her own, she couldn't...she wouldn't.

She inspected her hands and they were covered in scratches with various degrees of depth and the blood on her hands threatened to drip to the floor. She realised that she had been staring at all that glistening ruby red blood, when she heard a deep voice behind her. They coughed behind her, as to get her attention without making her jump out of her skin. She turned around keeping her hands behind her back.

"Are you alright?" an eerily familiar man said with the eyes that seemed to radiate kindness yet had a particular seriousness about them.

"I'm fine." She said reflexively, unsure how long he had been standing there and whether or not he witnessed her little _episode_, either way she kept her hands surreptitiously out of view.

"This does not look _fine_ to me." He said taking one of her hands gently out from behind her back. She winced in pain from the small movement, and knew that he probably saw the whole thing.

"I'm sorry. I'm not usually like this…" She said trailing off. She dare not spill her guts to this stranger; she wouldn't unload on someone no matter how much she was dying on the inside.

"We all have our bad days…" He said knowingly, inwardly thinking of how his bad days compared.

"I assume everyone in the town has been talking?" She said no longer willing to pretend to listen to the _'sorry for your losses' _ she swore the next person who uttered those words would not walk away unscathed; she would snap and then they would start talking amongst themselves like they always did.

"That's what you get when you live in small towns. Gossipy little things aren't they? You can say what you like about them, they make up for it by looking after their own." He said getting her to look at him rather than at the floor.

"I just don't like looking into their eyes and seeing only pity in them. They can't understand what I'm going through and I don't expect or want them to try."

"Look at me. I don't pity you but I am in the unique position of understanding what you are going through."

She was about to tell him that he really didn't but his eyes said that he had been through more pain than he would ever be able to put into words. She stopped herself, "I just don't know what to do with myself any more. Everything reminds me of him, and it just makes me…so angry…that he left me, that he left us behind." She had no idea what he had seen, what he had been through but since he was not willing to share the details she let things lie knowing that this would only reopen old wounds and she wouldn't inflict that level of pain on anyone.

"Let me clean up your hands." Damon said, both seeing and smelling the steady flow of blood, thankful that he had fed already and had more self control than his dear brother.

She relented and walked into the house, she noticed him slow as they approached the house. "Please come in." She said, which seemed to coax him inside.

"You're strong enough to make it through this. I know they say it gets easier as time goes on but it's true - but the pain never goes away, not entirely." He said frowning at the thought and at the damage she had done to her hands; it wasn't anything too severe but the cuts were deeper than he would have liked.

She gave a small snort, "You are the first person I actually believe the words that come out of your mouth." Christa looked at Damon's face which was focussing on her hands. She scrunched up her nose and frowned, tilting her head to the right.

This did not go unnoticed by Damon, "What is it?" he asked looking up for a moment.

"Do I…Do I know you? You seem really familiar." She said trying to remember where from, she was a whizz with faces but she couldn't place his and it both confused and frustrated her.

"Small towns." He said vaguely as he finished up with the dressing on her hands.

"hmm." She said, clearly not buying it and not willing to let it lie.

Damon thought this might happen, and this is why he intended on keeping his distance, but he recognised the free fall she was in and he needed to save her. He could always make her forget, and compel her to break the vicious cycle, but he knew how it would only force her to go through the motions as she crumbled away on the inside.

"There all done." He said letting her last hand go.

"Thank you." She said not letting his charm make her forget about her suspicions.

She wanted him to stay so she could figure everything out, but he started moving towards the door, so she decided to settle for a name.

"What's your name?"

"William." He replied knowing that to be a much more common name than his birth name and it was the first name that popped into his head.

"Take care of yourself…Christa." He said closing the door behind him.

At first she was surprised that he knew her name, but given that she was now the subject of town gossip she paid it no attention. At least she had his name now, but she would look into that later, she had a sneaking suspicion that the answers she sought lay upstairs.

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**Who is this woman, and what is so special about her that has caught Damon's intentions?**

**Keep the reviews coming, I love reading them :) And please ask any questions so I can fill in the blanks.**

**BTW this is currently an Elena free zone, but don't worry she still exists, this is just one of the few stories that doesn't involve her. We wouldn't be able to see the true Damon around her as he's always trying to be better for her.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry for the delay, was just transitioning from my old laptop to my new one :)**

**I thought I should mention that I am reworking the story I have already written as I go along. Here's the slightly overdue part 3!.**

**The flashbacks are just for context.**

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***Five days ago - Salvatore Mansion***

"What have you been up to Damon?" Stefan said in an accusatory tone.

"Nothing, I swear," Damon said holding his hands up in mock surrender, "Why?"

"There's been a number of _animal attacks_ reported." Stefan said in his ever serious voice.

"I'm no rookie. If I had gone on a killing spree, the bodies wouldn't have been found." Damon said, taking on a more serious demeanour as he considered what this meant.

"New players in town" Stefan deduced.

"_Great_ that's all that we need." Damon said finding himself missing the times where he was human and oblivious to the world of vampires.

***Night***

Cutting short his search of the town he heard far away screams emanating from the woods. By the time he had gotten into the forest the screams had come to an abrupt halt and all he could smell was blood, fresh human blood.

He tracked the blood to a camp site with bodies strewn all about the place, several limbs not where they belonged. Damon took out his cell and called Stefan.

_"What did you find?" Stefan said._

Damon heard a woman crying and someone telling her to be quiet in a hushed tone. He rushed off to check it out, ignoring his brother on the phone.

Upon hearing no response he tried again, _"Damon?!"._

Stefan's voice disturbed the man terrorising the woman and drew his attention directly to Damon.

He tried to rush Damon but he picked him up by the throat high into the air; using his phone free hand.

"Think we've got a batch of newbie's." Damon said, inspecting the creature before him, watching him squirm helplessly.

Once Damon heard Stefan hang up he slid his phone back into jeans pocket.

Stefan appeared next to Damon to survey the scene and promptly went to the woman, she seemed unharmed, so he compelled her to forget about all this and go home.

"How many of you are there?" Damon asked.

The baby vamp remained silent so Damon applied some more pressure around his neck. "How would you like to be here when the sun comes up?"

"Five" he squeezed out.

"Who turned you?"

Damon didn't have to but he squeezed him a little harder to make him talk faster, loosening his grip once more to allow him to actually talk.

"Matthew. He's not as strong as you..."

"Thanks" Damon said with a smirk, dropping him to his feet and pulling out a stake.

"But I told you everything."

As he expected he made a run for it, Stefan blocked his path and staked him.

"You got it from here?" Damon asked.

Stefan nodded, "You round up the others."

***Sunrise - Salvatore Mansion***

Damon walked in cleaning his hands on a fairly blood soaked cloth.

"How many did you find?" Stefan asked.

"All of them. But I couldn't find whoever turned them."

"They may have skipped town, they clearly don't know much about what they are doing."

"I'll keep looking." Damon said, not willing to leave it to chance.

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***Present***

Christa sat on the bed staring at the box she had retrieved from the back of her wardrobe. All she had managed to do was remove the lid; the last time she looked inside the box was when she was a little girl in her grandfather's house and when he died he left it to her but she hadn't got around to collecting it until she moved here to Mystic Falls. She needed to know how this man could be both a mystery and familiar at the same time and all she could scrounge from her memory was the fact that the answer was in the box. She peered into the box and smiled, remembering what was inside the box; her family history. The loose photos had been put into a photo album and the family tree put inside a solid silver tube.

Putting aside the family tree and the other assorted family related things inside the box she turned her attention to the album. The further she looked through the photos, the further back in time she could see. Christa was now skimming the pages knowing that she was so very close to finding what she needed. She stopped abruptly and turned back a page, removed a photo and looked at it closer. "That's impossible." She breathed, knowing that what she was seeing made absolutely no sense.

The photo was a black and white photo that had yellowed around the edges somewhat, turning it over she read the names Erin, William & Damon. Her grandfather had shown her this specific photo because of her resemblance to Erin. Placing the photo carefully down on the bed she took out the family tree and unrolled it, the paper looked older than the photo but it seemed remarkably sturdy and didn't roll back on itself when she let go. Christa was surprised that herself and David were on there in the same handwriting and the ink seemed just as old as when the other names had been written and she couldn't help but run a gentle finger over it. She traced her family tree up generations, all the way up to her great-great-grandparents; Erin Masters and Damon Salvatore - William being their son and Christa's great-grandfather.

Several thoughts ran through her mind, long lost relative, strange coincidence, but his behaviour told her that he and the man from the photo are one and the same. She didn't know how this could be possible, and that made her crave a proper explanation all the more.

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Christa decided to have a shower to cool down and mull things over, she wasn't going to rush things here, she needed to be careful as she figured that she had one shot to get answers from him and it all depended on how she handled things from here. The inherent concern he held for her made sense now, especially if she reminded him of Erin, at the time she just thought he was a new friend. But now she thought there was clearly something more going on here, more than he was currently willing to let on.

Just as she finished getting changed she heard a knock at the door, thinking that he had returned she snatched the photo and made her way downstairs, her hair still damp. She immediately noticed that the silhouette of whoever was knocking on her door was not that of Damon and therefore put the photo in the chest of drawers by the front door before opening it.

"Hello." She said with a polite smile. The man who stood before her was no one that she had seen before so she was curious as to why he was outside her door, something told her that she should step back, close the door and lock it; it was only her kind and trusting nature that prevented her from doing so.

"May I come in?" He said proving to her that her feeling was justified; this man was crazy.

"I'm sorry, I'm quite busy…" She said stepping back and moving to close the door.

"Oh I do apologize, my name is Matthew Robins" he said stopping the door with his hand.

She tried pulling the door but to no avail, "Well I'm sorry _Matthew_…" Before she could finish her sentence he had captured her gaze.

"You want to invite me inside, for dinner." He said smirking at his own pun.

Christa felt like she was sitting far away, listening to herself utter the words, "I want to..."

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**Review - even just a simple smiley face just to let me know if you are enjoying this story :) - Would be really interested if any one called the connection between Christa and Damon?**


	4. Chapter 4

**_Christa felt like she was sitting far away, listening to herself utter the words, "I want to..."_**

Before she was able to finish inviting him inside, Damon appeared in front of her, cutting off the connection between her and Robins.

"Could I see you for a moment?" Damon said rhetorically slapping his hand down hard on his shoulder. He briefly looked to Christa to check that she was alright; she was a little dazed, but no worse for wear.

Damon pulled Robins out of her sight, so he could deal with him properly. He took him to the back of the house, where he had pulled up his car.

"You chose the wrong town to mess with." Damon said, opening the trunk with one hand whilst keeping a firm grip on the vampire.

Robins looked to the trunk and back to Damon a confused expression on his face, Damon wordlessly staked Mr Robins and neatly folded him into his trunk and closed the lid.

He straightened his jacket and returned to Christa, she would most definitely have a lot of questions for him.

For her barely a minute had passed and Damon was suddenly in front of her and Matthew Robins was nowhere in sight.

"Where did he go?" She asked snapping out of it, putting a hand to her head trying to regain her focus, still not quite sure where it had gone in the first place.

"err, he had to go. You should be more careful in the future." Damon scolded, jumping from playful to serious.

"I thought it was you. Stop changing the subject." She said, her mood quickly shifting due to her fluctuating hormones.

Being as old as Damon was, this was not the first pregnant woman Damon had encountered, so he knew that he should just roll with it and avoid stressing her out at all costs to prevent her going into premature labour. This being the case he allowed her to proceed, knowing that it would not change the outcome.

"I knew I recognised your face, _Damon..._or do you prefer William?" She said taking out the photo from the draw and proudly presenting it to him, "Explain this." She said wondering if he was going to try to sell her some more lies, or finally tell the truth. She could tell that he didn't want to deceive her but that told her nothing of what he would do now, especially now that she had made the first move.

"Huh, that does look a lot like me." He said seeing how far she would push him on this and in turn find out how much she knew and how much she needed him to make her forget.

"You are identical to the very last detail. There is no way this is a coincidence and you clearly know what I'm talking about or you would have been fascinated by something like this."

It seemed like she hardly knew anything at all, just to be on the safe side he would compel her to tell him everything she knew before he made her forget it all, he wouldn't make her forget him completely, a part of him didn't want her to.

He stepped closer and looked deep into her eyes, just as he was about to compel her she held her stomach and groaned in pain, breaking the connection.

"What is it?"

"I'm fine." She said very unconvincingly and she knew it.

"You don't seem fine to me." Damon said getting a sense of De Ja Vu. Damon said concerned when she had to sit down from the pain.

"I have some medication in the kitchen." She said getting to her feet again, waving away Damon when he tried to help her but she was stubborn and insisted on doing it herself.

Damon heard a glass smash and ran into the kitchen, in the second it took him to get there she was lying on the ground in a puddle of water. This would be fine if it were not for the inner puddle of blood that was rapidly expanding; she had landed in the broken glass and deep cuts on her legs.

"I think I need some help." She said looking at Damon with a fearful expression knowing that the time for modesty and stubbornness had well and truly passed.

"We need to get you to the hospital." Damon said, picking her up like it was the easiest thing in the world and didn't seem at all bothered by the blood.

He would have just ran her to the hospital but he had no idea what it would do to the baby and he wouldn't compel her to forget until after both her and the baby were safe. So he pulled up his car round front and took her to the hospital the old fashioned way, mindful of the extra passenger he had in the trunk of his car.

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**One more chapter to go, not including the Epilogue. **


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